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Saturday, January 17, 2015

Weekend Book Corner Reviews: Get Your Joy Back

Get Your Joy Back (Kregel Books, January 2015)An invitation and a promise for weary Christian parents of special needs kids from a parent who’s been there.
“It isn’t the long day of monitoring a child’s precarious health or
being hypervigilant about her mood and mental health challenges that
weighs parents down; it’s the wishing that things were different. . . .
Resentment, not the intense care they must provide their child, is the
parents’ greatest stressor and source of pain.” —Laurie Wallin
Parents of specials needs children are exhausted. They’ve done all
the research, consulted all the experts, joined support groups, gotten
counseling, fought for the best life for their children. Often just
caring for their children’s needs and attempting to maintain a home
maxes out parents’ mental, emotional, and spiritual reserves.
Laurie Wallin knows firsthand the difficulties of this journey. With Get Your Joy Back,
she steps forward to make a bold, audacious claim: in the midst of this
long-term, intense task, it is still possible to have an abundant life,
full of joy. The key to radically changing daily life and restoring joy
to the weary is forgiveness. Wallin gives parents a lifeline to find
that restoration, pulling them back to shore when they feel like they’re
drowning.
This book is full of practical, biblical insights and strategies to
shed the resentments that leave Christian special-needs parents
themselves spiritually, emotionally, and socially drained. Wallin meets
readers right where they are, sugar coating nothing, but addressing
issues with honesty, humor, and–above all–hope.Learn more and purchase a copy at Laurie’s website.

My Review:
Working with children of special needs can be exhausting, especially on a daily basis, but living and caring for them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week can bring it to a whole new level. Having JOY every single day can be overwhelming, frustrating and completely draining. Not only caring for a child with special needs, but then also taking care of your every day life things like paying bills, grocery shopping, going to the Dr's, bedtime routine, visiting family and vacations? Those can be so overwhelming! I love how Laurie is honest, authentic and real about how difficult it can be to care for a child that has such demanding needs. On the other hand, Laurie realizes how beautiful it can be watching God's story unfold in each and every situation whether good, bad or ugly. God uses the mess and makes it for good. He uses the labels, diagnoses, therapeutic appointments and can turn them into good situations if you allow him to enter in and choose JOY! Of course this book is filled with humor, encouragement, validation and hope, which the world could use!

About the Author:

Laurie Wallin strives every day to live out her message
for families: that no matter the challenge, in Jesus they can have joy
and confidence. She is mom to four girls, two of them with mental and
developmental special needs. She has been a certified life coach for
over a decade, and is a regular speaker at women’s events and retreats, a
popular blogger, and the author of "Why Your Weirdness Is Wonderful."

Thank you Kregal Books for allowing me to review this book. The opinions expresses here are my own and I was not compensated for a positive review. I was only provided a complimentary book.

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Welcome!

Hi! I am Sarah, a 30 year old living in Michigan with my husband. I am social worker, blogger, book reviewer, writer and just a fun gal! I love to run, travel, drink lots of sweet tea and curl up with a great book. Thank for stopping by. Feel free to contact me, at Sarahsmithstorm@gmaildotcom. I would love to catch up with you or answer your questions!